3 Huge Influencer Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them

November 2, 2019November 2, 2019 by VELOCE

3 Huge Influencer Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them

Influencers are trusted individuals whose followers look up to them and turn to them for advice. They have the ability to create content that is relevant to their audience and can implement products in their social media posts that spark interest and engagement. This ultimately translates into sales.

Influencers have huge convincing power because their follower sees them as industry-experts and thus listen carefully to their advice. As a result, brands who partner with influencers and does it well can generate incredible marketing results that few marketing methods can compete with. In fact, for every $1 invested in influencer marketing, brands see, on average, a $6.5 in return. That’s quite remarkable.

But while influencer marketing can be a tremendously powerful marketing method, it also comes with challenges that can have a huge effect on how well your campaign performs. You can’t jump into an influencer partnership without any knowledge on how to do it and wonder why you aren’t getting anywhere near the results that the statistics above showed. To generate great results, and reach your true potential, you first need to know how to properly set up a successful campaign, and then, most importantly, identify the biggest influencer marketing challenges, and overcome them before they do any damage.

In this article, we’re looking at 3 Huge Influencer Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them.

Finding the right influencers

If you’re experienced within the influencer marketing space, I am sure that this isn’t the first time you’ve read or heard about the huge challenge of finding influencers. And it’s not surprising when the statistics speak very clearly: according to a study by Econsultancy, 73% of respondents said that identifying the right influencers was the biggest challenge of influencer marketing.

I’ve said it many times before, but I’ll say it again:

“The influencer you partner with will have the biggest impact on your campaign’s success, but you cannot neglect the importance of the other elements that go into a successful influencer campaign just because you have found a good influencer”.

What I mean by this is that, undeniably, the influencer will have the biggest impact on how well your campaign is. If you partner with an influencer that has faked their whole influence by buying fake followers, you will never generate any results – no matter if you have done all of the other parts that go into a successful campaign very well.

This also means that just because you have found a perfect influencer in terms of engagement, impact, followers, and influence, you shouldn’t ignore all the other elements. The best results are generated when the influencer and the parts of a successful influencer campaign work in harmony. This means putting great effort into developing a strategy, finding a perfect influencer that aligns with your brand’s values and that has an engaged audience, while also making sure the message the influencer shares comes off as genuine and engaging.

First off, you need to define your goals with your influencer campaign. When looking for influencers to partner with, you want to look for influencers who can help you achieve those goals. If they can’t, they are wrong for your brand.

Secondly, you need to make sure that the influencer you partner with speaks to your target audience, and are operating in your industry. There’s no point in partnering with an influencer in the football industry when you are trying to sell tennis equipment, right?

I could be listing all of the other steps that go into partnering with the perfect influencer such as looking at their previous posts, their previous brand endorsement, reputation, authenticity, etc. but there’s no need for that when you have influencer directories.

As influencer marketing has increased in popularity, more and more influencer directories and databases have evolved. This is great, because as a company, finding influencers is the single biggest challenge, and these tools help you streamline this process. The tools will ensure that you find the most suitable influencers for your brand and campaigns.

Simply fill in your preferred criteria and select the size of the list. Then, our team will go out and search for influencers that match your criteria and present you with a list of them within 72 hours.

Why influencers don’t want to partner with you

Influencers receive tons of brand messages and proposals on partnerships all the time. This means that just because you find a good influencer doesn’t mean they will want to work with you, or even respond to your message.

When approaching influencers, the challenge is approaching them in the right way so that they’ll actually say yes. But the truth is that there is more than meets the eye, and most of the time if the influencer doesn’t want to partner with you, they have some valid reasons. It’s good to understand both the reasons, but also how you can approach influencers to increase the chances of them saying yes.

First off, considering influencers are trusted individuals, most of them also feel the responsibility of guiding their followers and giving them recommendations about brands they actually genuinely like. In other words, if an influencer says no to partnering with you, it might be because they don’t believe your brand aligns with them and that their followers won’t be interested in your products.

If this is the case, you need to look at it from a different perspective than that the influencer is a “douchebag” for not accepting your money. The truth is that the campaign wouldn’t have generated good results either way because it wouldn’t have been authentic.

Most influencers value their trust and reputation more than some money from brands.

Another reason why an influencer says no might be because they receive too many requests. An influencer can obviously not partner with all, and if they would, they risk losing a lot of trust. One day they’re promoting one makeup brand and says that it is the best, and the other day, they’re promoting a new makeup brand and says that it is the best. It just won’t resonate well with their followers.

Lasy but not least, if an influencer doesn’t respond to your message, it might be because they just haven’t seen it or forgotten about it. Send a message and wait a few days. If they don’t respond, send a friendly reminder. If they still don’t respond, you can carefully try a third time, but if they don’t respond after that, you should take it as a signal that they are not interested.

How to approach influencers

All of the things above were reasons that influencers don’t want to partner with you, but how can you approach them to increase the chances of them saying yes?

First off, you need to treat them with respect. Don’t think you’re better than them, and to be kind, compliment their work when approaching them. Som flatter always goes a long way – as long as it is genuine.

When approaching then, you shouldn’t pitch them. Instead, you should first focus on building relationships with them and then approach them with your idea. Yes, this takes a longer time than to just send an email, but the reward will be that much greater, with more influencers saying yes, and working harder just because they have become passionate about your brand.

Also, with the fact that influencers are busy people with lots of requests, it goes without saying that you should focus on being unique in your approach. They are probably receiving tons of basic standard emails, and how much will they stand out if they’re receiving 5 equally boring emails?

Take your time to do a little research to find out their passions, what they like, what they dislike, and what you have in common.

All of these things will greatly increase the chances of them saying yes.

Not paying attention to the relevance

This goes hand-in-hand with selecting influencers, but since this is a so common mistake, it deserves to be an own point so I can describe the challenge in more detail.

What causes brands to not pay attention to detail is the simple fact that they have little experience with social media, and how to distinguish a good and suitable influencer in general.

Of course, this isn’t something you learn in a day, but identifying the challenge and the mistake you might be doing is a great first step.

I often hear about brands that approach influencers, but when you look closer at both the influencer and the brand, you can see that they are so extremely different. I’ve touched upon the importance of finding influencers that are actually within your industry, but I simply cannot emphasize it enough.

A part of not paying attention to relevance is only looking at follower count. Of course, it is easy to understand why certain brands and marketers only pay attention to the follower count of an influencer and nothing else. The metric is clear as ice – on the surface. But if you think about marketing power and impact, is the follower metric clear as ice, really?

No, it is far from that.

If you, for example, buy followers and hope to get brand deals, you can forget about getting them with brands that are experienced in the space. They will instantly be able to spot that they are fake and that you have no true impact on your audience.

However, if you have tons of fake followers and an inexperienced brand approaches you, they will believe that you have a great influence, and they’ll fall into the trap of partnering with you.

When selecting influencers, you cannot just look at the follower count. Yes, follower count is a great metric to start and get a potential understanding of how influential that person is, but if you can’t back it up by looking at other things such as engagement and the quality of the comments the influencer receives, the follower count means nothing.

The bottom line is that you should put the greatest importance in relevance when setting up your campaign and partner with an influencer. If the campaign isn’t relevant to your audience, don’t run it. If the influencer isn’t relevant in your industry, don’t partner with them.

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